


I'll just make the same mistake again

by redlipsredledger



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Extended Universe
Genre: AU Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin is still a hero, Darth Vader Redemption, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Gen, Leia Organa Needs a Hug, Past Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Protective Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 06:03:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21423379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlipsredledger/pseuds/redlipsredledger
Summary: A collection of dribs and drabs with Force Ghost Anakin. These don't really follow any canon I'm just bored out of my skull so they're all very AU.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	1. I'm lost and it kills me inside

It had been a peaceful night for most but not for her; she had been suffering from bad insomnia now for weeks. She couldn't quite explain why, perhaps it was her growing belly, the two small lives wriggling away in there meant that her bladder was a football at the best of times but tonight, she had been walking around trying to massage the bottom of her back for about two hours. She quite enjoyed the warmer nights; the beauty of the galaxy above her was able to be enjoyed in the precarious times of peace. 

Han - who was sleeping peacefully - had told a very tired, restless Leia that she could wake him whenever she couldn't sleep but evidently he'd underestimated just what a deep sleeper he could be. After a few minutes of trying - though admittedly not very hard - she had given up and left him to sleep, pushing the thin curtain aside and she stepped out onto the balcony and here she'd been ever since. She walked over to one of the comfortable cushioned loungers she kicked up her feet, resting her head against the back of it as she rubbed her stomach.

"You two are trouble tonight." She spoke softly to her bump.

She knew though that she couldn't expect an different with Half-Skywalker Half-Solo children; she wondered idly for just a moment whether her mother had endured something similar to this when she was pregnant with her and Luke. The thought quickly became far too painful for her. 

Ever since she'd learned the truth about who she was and what fate her mother and her father had met in the process, she'd become saddened. It was a tragic story and one that she'd have changed if she could. Love - it seemed - could turn to tragedy incredibly quickly and she hoped that it wouldn't happen to she and Han too. She had been through enough pain in the last few years and finally though her father had been brought peace and some form of redemption, it hadn't changed the past that had been brought about by fear.

Nothing could change that. It was a sad sort of irony that a fear of losing everything had cost Anakin Skywalker exactly that: Everything. He'd lost everything to fear and anger and corruption. Palpatine had broken his very soul, a soul that her mother and Obi Wan had once thought incorruptible and thad had lead to the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent people. She didn't look back at Anakin Skywalker with anything but pity, if she was going to be honest.

Pity and a wish that someone had been able to reach through to him, alas though if Padme couldn't she doubted anyone else would be able to.

Her eyes started to drift closed, slowly giving in to the peace and the exhaustion that was overtaking the heavily pregnant woman until she heard a voice coming from her left. Leaning forward - though struggling to do so - Leia Organa studied the man that stood there, the glowing light around him told her that this man was no longer among the living. She studied him, her brown eyes taking in the form before her and slowly, recognition started to overcome her and she wrapped her arms across her stomach, clearly feeling protective over the two small lifeforms growing within her.

"Anakin." She breathed. It seemed impossible.

He looked almost hurt as he studied her, a sadness settled across the mans features and he tilted his head gently to the side as he studied her; she looked so much like her mother that it looked almost as though he was seeing a ghost. There was some kind of ironic joke in there somewhere.

"I won't hurt you." He spoke simply.

"I don't believe I could even if I wanted to." He looked troubled at the thought.

"Not that I do, of course." Why would he?

Leia Organa studied the man that stood before her, more often than she wanted to admit she'd wished that she could talk to her father just once, just to see what kind of person he had been before Vader, before Palpatine had corrupted his mind, before the death and the chaos and the pain he'd caused. Just once, Leia wished she could have spoken to Anakin Skywalker as the man he was _before _all of that.

"How do I know you won't?" Leia spoke guardedly.

She didn't take her eyes off of the man for even a second; she could feel the emotion rise in her like a lump in her throat that threatened to choke her and she kept her hands protectively over her bump. More than anything, she'd ensure her children were safe and well. More than anything else, Leia would fight to her last breath for their survival if that's what it came down to.

"Because I'm here to make amends, I'd guess? Master Yoda has an ironic sense of humor. I don't suppose that I'd hurt you even if that weren't the case." He smiled, a soft sad smile.

"Then what are you doing here?" She questioned warily.

"You tell me." He studied her then. It was perhaps the first time that he had properly.

She had her mothers brown eyes, the same troubled look that Padme had when she'd tried to ask him what was wrong with him; she had the same youthful features, her mothers nose... Luke, Luke looked so much more like him but Leia was Padme through and through, he could see it. It broke his heart to see if he was going to be honest with himself. Anakin lowered himself to the ground and sat cross legged watching his daughter. His eyes fell to her stomach and he released a gentle sigh.

"You seek guidance, sweet girl. I'm here because you reached out to the Universe and it gave you me." For whatever good that would do.

She deserved a better guide than him, she deserved someone better than him; he almost wished that it were her mother stood here before now. It was clearly the guidance of a parent she sought, not the people that had raised her though he'd thank them for their love and guidance of his daughter for the rest of eternity but as a biological part of her. A part of her that could answer the burning questions that were clearly troubling her. She had questions, questions about who she was and about who her children would become and so, Anakin inhaled and he offered his daughter the chance to say whatever it was she had to say by sweeping his arm toward her and nodding his head slightly.

"The floor is all yours."

"Will I end up like you? Will my children-- Do we have the same darkness in us that you do?" He could see that she was struggling to ask it.

Anakin pondered the question for a moment before he shook his head gently. He didn't believe for even a second that she had the same darkness in her that he did; she reminded him too much of her mother. Their conversation had barely progressed beyond a few words and he could see her heart clearly. She had her mothers compassion, strength, determination and unlimited capacity for love and he found that an admirable quality.

"You have no darkness inside of you, Leia. Your heart is as pure and unshakeable as your mothers was before you. You have so much of her inside of you; I cannot promise you that the darker side of the Force will not touch your children, but the twins? I see good in them. A lot of good. I feel them just as I did you and your brother through the tendrils and vines of the Force that tie us all together. I feel the strength of their hearts, I feel the power that flows through them and I feel the love you have for them that I believe can hold them on a truer path than the one I walked."

He released a sigh as he stood, walking toward her and he crouched down next to her.

"I see the heart of a lioness and she doubts herself now, and I think you're allowing fear to rule you. This is me. This is the part of you that is me, my girl. You're allowing fear to get the better of you just as I did, and I can promise you that will lead you nowhere good. You have so much inside of you that's strong, stronger than even you yourself believe. Don't ever underestimate the strength in your heart. You are her. You are your mother. She was as beautiful and fierce as I can see you are. Hold to her. Hold to her because I wish that I had. Let her love be what'll save you from your doubts and uncertainties the way I wish I did."

Anakin harbored so much regret; the archives would never tell anyone that. He knew that they'd tell the tales of a monster and so they should but they'd leave out the parts of him that were a man, too. They'd leave out the parts of him that loved and felt and feared and lost and cried many a tear for the people he loved. They'd leave out the broken, vulnerable boy that lost his mother that day and felt helplessness over and over again. All he'd ever wanted was the strength to save the people he loved and instead his heart and soul had been corrupted by that yearning and eventually, he'd destroyed everything that he cared for out of that fear.

"I wish it were her here with you. You deserve better than the advice of a monster." He spoke sadly.

"You are no monster; your final actions were of love, of protection and redemption. You saved your son. You did the right thing."

"The two of you are all I have left of her."

She could practically feel the pain radiating off of him and a part of her felt something more than Pity for Anakin Skywalker in that moment, she felt compassion for him. She felt a need to tell him that whatever remained inside of him that was still very human had won out in the end and that was what had mattered. She knew it would never take away what he'd done, she knew that it would never right the plethora of wrongs he'd done in the process but they couldn't condemn a man for everything when he still had some good in him and his final actions had proved that. Anakin Skywalker was dominant over the hatred instilled in him by Palpatine and she just wished that it had been all along.

"You weren't always a monster, Anakin." Leia spoke quietly.

He didn't look like a monster now; he looked barely older than a boy. Youthful but broken spirited and hollowed out by the pain that had resided there and eaten away at everything that he cared for and she couldn't imagine the kind of agony that would bring to a person. She wished that she could tell him that he could be forgiven for the evils he'd done over the years but she knew it wasn't possible; the reminders of what he'd done would resonate for longer than either of them could comprehend but she was saddened that there would never be a mention of the boy he'd been before that.

There would never be a mention of the redemption he'd sought toward the end and there should be, but the villain of the story was never supposed to be seen as worthy of salvation but Anakin hadn't always been a monster.

"I wish that I'd fought harder the way she begged me to; she asked me to hold to the two of you and the love that I had for all three of you but it simply wasn't-- I couldn't see past my own fears. When she died I was told that Luke had been the only survivor. I lost my wife, the love of my life and one of our children in the process and that shattered whatever I held to." If at all he had held to anything toward the end of his life as Anakin Skywalker.

It was all so fuzzy for him now. All he knew was that he'd live with the ultimate failure for the rest of his eternity; if the Force held to him the way that it did now he'd be plagued with life beyond death whether he wanted it or not. Redemption was unattainable for him in life, perhaps in death he could make the difference that he should have in life. The universe worked in mysterious ways.

"You fear for the lives of your children but I can't tell you the future, my sweet girl. You must trust in them, even during the times it seems impossible."

He was pleading with her now; he knew, he knew far more than he was telling her because he could feel it there lingering and he hoped like hell he was wrong. He hoped that the dark could be banished with him and his wrongdoings but he knew that there was always a chance, always something lingering in the Skywalker Legacy that would touch the darkness but he sought now not to break someone's heart but to be a father and comfort his daughter.

For once in many a year, Anakin Skywalker was trying to be the selfless person he had always wanted to be and save his baby from the pain and his baby indeed she was; his kind, strong hearted girl and he wished that he'd gotten to know her in life but here in death he could make one vow and one alone: Leia Organa would never again go without the protection of her father.

"Trust in yourself and trust in the light. The light will always find its way into the hearts of even the most stubborn of souls."

He was proof of that. Light had saved him in the end. Light had been what had brought him back just as Padme had told him it would all those years ago.

"I never trusted in myself, do not walk my path. If I can ask anything of you, I ask it be that: Trust the light, trust yourself Leia. Trust yourself and I promise you, you can overcome anything."

He reached out then, his hand touching her cheek and he released a gentle sigh. He couldn't save her from the heartbreak he knew would come for her in time, but he could fight with all of his strength to hold to his promise. He'd fight to ensure that the light prevailed in her life in the end because the darkness in their legacy had taken enough away from them already.

Anakin could be the last destroyed by it. The darkness could not - and would not - destroy his daughter, too.


	2. We'll be safe and sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin has a talk with Ben to try to redeem his grandson.   
Idek. It probably sucks. Let me know haha!

It was too calm. It was horribly so if he were going to be honest; the silence only made the nightmares worse. Most people were happier in the calmer times but not him. He wasn't. He wasn't happier at all when it was calm; his heart raced uncontrollably and he sprang up in bed with his hand over his chest and he could feel it practically trying to beat his way out of his ribs. Thud, thud, thud, thud...

Faster and faster. Faster by the second and the faster it beat the more difficult it became to breathe. A chill washed over his body; he felt the cold sweat cling to his skin and he tried like hell to sit up and fight. Fight to calm down, fight to breathe... Fight to do anything _but _sit there feeling helpless. Helpless wasn't something he felt often. His hand knotted in the white sheets below him and he'd tear the fabric straight apart if he could but all he could do was sit there.

Sit.

Breathe.

Compose.

He kept repeating the three words over and over in his head: Sit. Breathe. Compose. He couldn't freak out, he couldn't start to lose it, not here and not now. He had so much going on but what else could he do? He'd turned his back on everything weeks ago, he'd turned his back on everything and run from the darkest most evil forces the galaxy could imagine and he'd done so for love. Ben Solo was no less a fool than his father had been and yet she stirred slightly beside him, sleep still consuming her peaceful, beautiful form and he ran his hand up the bare skin of her back gently enough to feet like nothing more than a breath of wind against her skin.

He leaned then, placing one ghosted kiss against her shoulder before he hauled his large frame from the bed and pulled on a shirt and a pair of very loose fitting pants; he knew it was haphazard of him, sloppy even but in the safety of a rebel base it wasn't as though formal clothing was an easy thing to come by; casual seemed to be the new thing around here. He wasn't used to it of course, but naturally it was one of the many new realities he was going to have to accept.

He made his way outside, the stretching stars above him drew eyes to the two beautiful, full, bright shining moons in the sky and he breathed out a sigh. 

Breathe.

Compose.

He could no longer sit around. That wasn't an option; he needed to walk, to walk and stay moving but there was little he could do, not here anyway. He glared back over his shoulder at a Rebel soldier who had the audacity to tell him that he shouldn't be out here and that they were 'Still under strict orders to keep him under close monitoring'. His mother, no doubt. He rolled his eyes and waved him off dismissively.

He might have also threatened to shoot him if he didn't go. He'd deny that though.

"I wish I was as fond of the stars as I became of seeking to destroy them." He voice spoke softly; his voice youthful and yet pained.

Ben wheeled around immediately, his blaster in his hand and he pointed it. The man allowed a small chuckle to break his lips and he shook his head.

"You can't kill a ghost, boy." He rose a brow at the weapon anyway.

"I know you." Ben frowned, he took a step toward the glowing figure then.

"I would imagine more in my other form." The man stated simply.

Sad blue eyes turned toward the boy and Anakin Skywalker took in the boy that stood before him and the man that he'd become; there was still something in there, something screaming and shouting and telling him that this boy could - and had to - be saved. There was so much dark in him, the darkness like a whispering chill that pulled tendrils of evil from the air around it, seemingly impossibly growing by the second and yet it was held at bay and that was a curious thing; when he'd been alive Anakin hadn't been able to see darkness but here with this boy he could. He could see it like a shadow following him around and yet it was kept away.

There was a light around him, a shield if you would. Something forbidding it from entering and corrupting his very soul and Anakin found himself smiling at that; he knew that shield all too well because it was the very same one that he'd rejected out of fear and pain all those years ago. He inhaled a deep breath. 

"Love." One word slipped his lips as he studied Ben.

"I see the darkness inside of you. I feel it, it calls out like a wailing banshee in the depths of a swamp but it's held away from you by love. The love of perhaps a mother, the love of a woman?" He had no way of knowing; he was a ghost.

He could not predict the future only learn from the past and learn indeed he had; it had taken death to learn a very important lesson but he'd learned it anyway.

Painfully, but learning in any form was still progress; he knew that's what Obi Wan would have told him. He knew that he'd been told time and again that the most important lessons were the most painful ones.

"You're Anakin Skywalker, my grandfather." The boy was confused. 

"And you're Ben Solo." Anakin replied with a simple smile.

"But you're dead." Ben's brow furrowed this time. He could practically see the wheels turning in his head.

"You're lost. I'd say that's worse." Anakin rose a brow at his grandson.

Lost indeed was worse than death; death was kind of an inevitable state for every being in the galaxy but to be lost and to doubt your purpose was something that Anakin knew all too well; he knew what it was like to have a battle between light and dark inside of him that could consume everything you were in a heartbeat and it was something that broke you in ways that so few people were capable of understanding. He could though. He could understand all too well what it was to be broken inside.

He understood what it was to be divided by two completely opposite sides of a coin that could flip from one side to another in a heartbeat and you'd have no control at all over it. 

"Lost is worse than death?" Ben asked incredulously, clearly questioning Anakin's logic.

"I think you've got this all backward." Ben shook his head.

"No, death is inevitable but a loss of purpose can break a soul. Your soul is all that remains of you when you're gone and let me tell you living with that regret for all of eternity is worse than one would imagine." Anakin sounded reasonable.

Ben watched him thoughtfully.

He paused though, turning back toward the rebel base wondering if he should have left Rey alone. Anakin's lips formed a smile as he made his way over to place his hand on his grandsons shoulder.

"She makes you want to be better." It wasn't a question; Anakin could read it in his eyes.

"You feel the war raging on inside of you but you're fighting it for her." Anakin cast a look back at the base then.

"Who is she?" He questioned quietly.

"Her name is Rey." Ben looked then at his grandfather who - in his present state - looked almost younger than he did.

Anakin had a lot of sorrow and pain in his eyes, he looked solemn and remorseful, human and almost kind; that was not the side to him that the Archives showed. He had become Ben's idol over the years, he'd wanted to live up to the reputation Anakin had and he'd allowed the darkness to poison his heart and he knew that there was no good in doing any of that. He hadn't wanted good nor had he wanted light; Luke had tried to kill him that night and he'd come to the conclusion then that there was little good in the light when his own uncle feared him for what he'd become.

Anakin's way seemed his best option; he was the grandson of the fiercest dark that the universe had ever experienced. He had a legacy to live up to... It was just the wrong side of that legacy.

"And you love her?"

"Yes." Ben looked troubled then.

Love wasn't something that he'd ever seen himself experiencing. Darkness had seeped into his heart and soul and it had turned him away from anything good in the galaxy but then there was her. There was a bond so strong that there was no way he could ignore it. He had tried, he had tried and he had wished her dead and worse but he'd killed to protect her that day and that had changed everything. He was just as hunted and outcast as she was.

He was just as alone, angry and heartbroken as Anakin had been and Anakin saw that.

"You're living the wrong way, son." Anakin released a sigh then.

"You have dark in you, I can see it. I can _feel _it but I can promise you that it doesn't have to win out. If I could show you what I'd done and what horrors I'd inflicted on the galaxy you'd understand. Your grandmother was the most beautiful being in the universe. She was my Angel and I destroyed her through fear and hatred. I killed the love of my life with such terrible mistakes that I may as well have taken her life with my own hand. Don't repeat my mistakes."

Wise, no one would have ever thought Anakin wise, least of all his mentor.

"There is light. I can sense that, too. There was light in me once, too, but I pushed it away so far that all I had left was darkness. I feared losing everything and so I destroyed everything I loved in the process and as a result, I tried to destroy everything else because I felt as though there was nothing worth saving in this galaxy once she was gone until I met your uncle that day. I saw love. I saw strength and I saw the woman I'd fallen so deeply for in his eyes and I knew I had a choice to make: I could end everything as I'd planned or I could save whatever remained of her out there and I chose her. I chose her the way I should have chosen her to begin with."

He regret that so much now. He looked at Ben and the sadness was radiating off of him.

"Your darkness will be the thing that destroys her, Ben. If you love her, you need to choose _her_ and her alone. You need to chase away the dark with that love because if you don't? You'll lose everything. You have done enough. You have caused so much pain that I won't deny but you can be brought back. Let her save you. Let her save you the way I wish I'd let her grandmother save me and I promise you, it'll all be worth it in the end."

After all, The Force was strong but love? Love was the strongest force that ever existed.

"How do you come back from what I've done?" He could feel it. The anger in Ben was bubbling.

He was growing frustrated but it wasn't at his grandfather; Anakin knew that the anger that Ben felt was at himself. He regret what had happened, he regret the death of his father and he knew that he wished more than anything he could take that back because he still felt the pain that radiated from his mother. Anakin himself felt it; Leia was as connected with the Force as she was with her father even after all this time.

Inhaling a deep breath, Ben stepped a few steps ahead of his grandfather and he watched the base almost as though he expected an attack at any moment, or he expected it to burst into flames but it stood there with nothing terrible happening. He breathed what could only be described as a sigh of relief. 

"Do you fear the First Order or yourself?" Anakin spoke, raising a brow as he studied his grandson.

"Both." Ben confessed, turning over his shoulder to look at him.

"I redeemed myself in death, saving my son was my last act in this galaxy but death doesn't have to be your only chance. Your mother even after all you've done _loves _you. Your father would have died willingly for you ten times over and while it was true he didn't have to? His was as noble a death as he could've hoped for. He died for love, love he hoped would save you so you can choose to let it be for nothing, or you can choose for your father to be the last true sacrifice you make." Anakin shrugged.

"Save yourself from the dark inside of you by holding on to what you love or lose it all in the hopes of achieving the same destructions I wanted once. I had my reasons, can you say the same? My legacy is death and destruction and I'm sorry for that but you have to understand that my legacy isn't _all _death and destruction. Once I was a boy. Once I was a force for good. Hold to that part of who I was and you'll make me proud."

He'd heard it often enough, Ben holding to who his grandfather was in order to justify actions he knew were wrong. Anakin - saddened by what had become of his family - watched his grandson now in the hopes that finally, the legacy of darkness that lurked inside of the Skywalker line could end with him as he'd intended it to that day.

"I wanted it to end with me, let it end. Let it be done." He pled now to his grandson. A sad smile touched his features.

He reached out once more for Ben.

"Now, you have the answers you sought from the universe, go to her. Protect _her _and fight for the light inside of you. Fight for the goodness in you. For your mother, your father, your grandmother and your uncle alike. They are the best of our family and I am the worst. Don't follow in my footsteps. I never wanted it. I wanted the hatred to end with me, so let it end. Be better. Do better. You have so much more in you than just me." With that, Anakin inhaled deeply.

"Goodbye, Ben. I'll always be there for you, son. I'll always watch over you just as I do your mother. You are much better than I ever was."

And Anakin turned then, walking away and letting the light consume him.


End file.
